


What Happened in Budapest

by nerdsandthelike



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, ace!Ursula, other random future relationships with OCs, past Hero/Claudio, past Pedro/Balthazar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 09:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3972286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdsandthelike/pseuds/nerdsandthelike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben and Bea give relationship advice. (And cheat at MarioKart).</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Happened in Budapest

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my lovely editor and dear IRL friend Xanisis. 
> 
> And of course, I own none of this. The original characters belong to Shakespeare and these iterations and their settings came from the ingenious minds of the Candle Wasters.
> 
> I also apologize for breaking up Pedro and Balthazar (I didn't want to, but for the purposes of this story it had to happen) and unfairly maligning the city of Budapest, which is beautiful and well worth visiting. 
> 
> I'm pretty sure that I got this idea from a tumblr post about future!Ben and Bea giving relationship advice, but I can't find it, so I can't cite it directly.

It’s just before their final year of university, and they’re holding a going away party for Ursula. She’s been accepted at some film school in America and is leaving in just a couple weeks, so they’ve all gotten together again. It’s been harder now since they’re at Uni in different parts of the country and everyone is heading off, but they found one day for everyone to be back in Auckland, so they’re getting together for one last hurrah. It’s a lot like old times, despite everything. There’s pizza and chips and teasing and old jokes. Bea and Ben are hogging the playstation, because Ben keeps accusing his girlfriend of cheating at MarioKart. 

“I don’t think it’s possible to cheat at MarioKart,” Pedro says, looking over their shoulders as Ben falls off the Rainbow Road. Again. 

“Well she’s definitely doing it!” Ben exclaims, angrily pushing the button to accept a rematch.

“It’s not my fault you suck at video games,” Bea says in a superior tone as she stares straight at the TV, violently jerking her whole body halfway across the couch to make a particularly tight turn. 

Ben opens his mouth to protest when Claudio walks back into the room, returning his cell phone to his pocket. 

He stares at his phone blankly. “I think Julia is going to dump me,” he says in a monotone. 

“Why’s that?” Pedro asks. 

“We’ve been fighting about what to do next year. She’s thinking about moving to Australia, and I’m trying to figure out what I want to do next, and it’s just…. it’s been weird lately. And it’s hard. And I don’t think we’re going to make it.” He sinks down into a chair at the kitchen table. 

“I know what you mean,” Pedro says, sitting down next to Claudio. “That’s why Balth and I couldn’t stay together.” He sighs, “I just couldn’t keep up with his jet-setting lifestyle.” He nudged his ex-boyfriend companionably. 

“Saddest day of my life,” Balthazar says with a good-humored smirk. 

“Don’t let James hear you say that,” Meg calls from her perch on top of the counter. “How is your current hunk, by the way?”

Balthazar hesitates. “James is fine, I guess. He’s been really busy lately, and I only get to see him once a week outside classes. It’s fine when we’re together, but we’re not together much.”

“Relationships can be really difficult,” Hero adds sympathetically. “Even though the breakup with Derek was mutual, it was still really tough for both of us.”

“And I’m worried about Ryan cheating on me,” Meg throws her hands up. “Is anyone’s love life here going well?”

“Mine’s pretty fine,” Ursula deadpans from the table next to Balthazar.

  

“You,” Meg says, pushing herself off the counter, and wrapping her arms around Ursula, “and your asexy-sexy self totally do not count.”

“Ooh! Ooh!” Ben exclaims from the couch. “Pick me! Pick me! My love life is awesome!”

Bea doesn’t even look up from the screen. “I want you to think very carefully about the next thing that comes out of your mouth, darling. Because I can and will strangle you. I know where you sleep.” She punctuates her threat by dropping a tortoiseshell.

Ben swerves to avoid it and falls off the road again. “No, I’m serious Bea,” he says, looking over at his girlfriend. “We’ve been through all this shit already.” She looks back at him for a moment before he throws down his controller in frustration. “Ok! This is it! We have to play a different track!”

“I was wondering when you’d give in,” Bea smirks. 

“Give in! Never!” he says, grabbing the controller. “It’s just harder for you to cheat on the other courses.”

“Because I definitely cheated on the last one, and your losses have nothing to do with your own incompetence.”

“Love you too, babe,” he smiles at her. 

“Whatever dickface,” she says lightly, rolling her eyes. “How’s Bowser’s castle?”

“Perfect. I dominate this one.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you do,” Bea says, hitting select. 

“You know,” Balthazar says thoughtfully, “Ben and Bea have been dating a long time.”

“Yeah,” Claudio says, squinting. “How long have you two been together?”

“Well,” Beatrice begins, “it depends on how you count it-”

“What she means is about five years,” Ben interrupts. “Give or take.”

“Damn,” says Pedro, walking towards the couch. “When you say it like that… God. You guys are the old married couple of this group, aren’t you? Holy shit. Ben, are you gonna propose soon?”

“Nope!” Ben says, popping the ‘p.’ “Bea would kill me if I tried.”

“Damn straight,” Bea adds, lapping Ben for a second time. “it’s not that I’m opposed to marriage. I’m not even opposed to marrying him-”

“My girlfriend, ladies and gentlemen, the romantic!” Ben interjects, swerving past Luigi.

“The thing is that we know we’re going to get married some day," Beatrice continues as if Ben hadn't interrupted. 

“We’ve talked about it. It’s just that proposing is dumb," Ben continues for her. "We’re adults, if we wanna get married we’ll decide to get married. Together.”

“And I don’t need a shiny ring or an awkward declaration to make that decision official,” Bea says.

“And that declaration would be awkward,” Claudio says, leaning over the back of the couch and poking Ben. 

“But endearing!” Ben tries to defend himself as he slips on a banana peel. 

“It would probably be slightly adorable,” Bea admits. “But totally unnecessary. Being in a relationship is so not about the big declarations. Those are easy.”

Ben laughs, “Compared to actually living with someone? Declaration are a piece of cake!” He throws himself across the couch trying to take a turn. “I mean, I can still remember our first fight.”

“Budapest?” Bea asks.

Ben winces. “Budapest.”

“Umm... guys,” Hero says cautiously. “You literally used to fight all the time.”

“Unh-uh,” Ben says, shaking his head violently. 

“No. Not at all,” Bea says firmly. “We used to argue.”

“There were disagreements,” Ben says theatrically. “Elaborate flirtations. Pranks gone too far. Epic battles of words and wit. Budapest was a fight.”

“How have we not heard about this?” Meg asks. “Or does everybody else know what went down and I’m in the dark?”

“I’ve never heard about this before,” Hero says, shrugging. The rest shake their heads. 

“Actually,” Ursula speaks up, “I knew about it.”

“What?” Pedro turns to her. “How?”

“I was the only one that was on FaceTime after it happened. I got the call,” Ursula says, reaching over to grab a handful of doritos. 

“And you never told us?” Meg says, grabbing a slice of pizza.

“Not my story to tell,” Ursula says, eating her dorito calmly. 

“OK. Fine then,” Meg says. “I want the deets.”

“Meg, it’s really not a fun story,” Ben says.

“But,” Hero adds, walking over to the couch, "it does have a happy ending.”

“And,” Claudio says, scooting his chair towards the couch. “I think we could all use some advice on relationships and fighting and shit.”

“You know,” adds Balthazar, joining the ever-growing group of people gathered around the couch. “I’ve always been a little… surprised at how well you two made it. I’d like to know how.”

“It’s nice to know that you have so much confidence in our relationship. Thanks for that,” Ben says grumpily as Beatrice beats him again. He looks over at his girlfriend for a moment. They look around at their friends and after an instant, Bea nods. 

“It was on our gap year,” she begins, setting her controller down on the coffee table. Ben does the same, and they turn on the couch to face their audience. 

“And it’d been going fantastically!" Ben says brightly. "We’d had a great time. We’d been dating for what, a year?”

“Oh no,” Bea corrects him. “This was only February.”

“Right because it was So. Fucking. Cold,” Ben says, shivering at the memory "So that would be, what? September, October, November… at a liberal estimate we’d only been dating like six months. Wait-,” he turns to face Bea, “did we really go traveling together after less than a year of dating?”

“We did,” Bea says, rolling her eyes.

“That,” Ben responds with a shocked expression, ”was a dumb decision. How did we not kill each other?”

“True love?” Claudio suggests.

“Maybe,” Ben says pensively, while Beatrice mimes gagging. 

“No,” Beatrice corrects. “No it was definitely a lot of hard work, I mean, we almost did kill each other in Budapest.”

“Yeah,” Ben flinches. 

“So what happened?” Meg asks, pulling them from their reverie. 

“We were six months into this relationship, two months into our grand gap-year journey,” Bea starts.

“And we took a night train from Switzerland to Budapest.”

“But since we were traveling on basically no budget, we didn’t get a sleeper car.”

“Which means that my darling girlfriend,” Ben pats her arm,” got absolutely no sleep that night. And you’ve all seen sleep-deprived Beatrice.”

Their audience gives a collective shudder. 

“And,” Bea says defensively, looking at Ben, “it was February. So it was cold. And somebody I love very dearly has very poor circulation. So he kind of shuts down once it gets below a certain temperature.”

“The point is,” Ben says, “And we’re not ashamed to say this, we were both in a really shitty mood that day.” He looks back at Bea, “yeah?”

“Oh yeah. And it just kept getting worse,” Bea says, turning back to the audience. 

“Ben and Bea and the horrible, no good, very bad day,” Ben jokes, and the others giggle. “You laugh now, but the ATM ate my card at the train station.”

“Oh, and the metro didn’t have an elevator, so we had to carry our luggage up and down the stairs,” Beatrice adds. 

“The ticket machines were broken.”

“The trains were late,” Bea lists. 

“The maps were terrible.”

“And, well...” Bea says, breaking the rhythm. “You guys know that I don’t deal well with not being in control…”

“Really?” Ben laughs. “I had no idea. When did that happen?”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” She reaches over to hit him on the shoulder, but he catches her hand on the back of the couch.  
“Play nice in front of the other kids dear,” Ben teases. She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t let go of his hand. 

“So anyway,” she continues, glaring pointedly at her boyfriend. “Between my German and Ben’s French, we’d pretty much spoken at least a little bit of the language everywhere we’d been so far. But in Hungary…”

“We were screwed,” Ben says bluntly. 

“It is nothing like anything I’d seen before. It was terrifying. I couldn’t even recognize the word for ‘street’!”

“So,” Ben starts counting on his fingers, “the tally is now up to tired, cold, lost, confused, upset, and as you can imagine, this being us, that meant we spent the whole day sniping at each other.”

“So when we got back to the hostel that night....” Bea trails off

“The whole thing just kind of totally blew up,” Ben finishes for her. 

“What were we even fighting about?” Bea asks him. “I know it was something stupid.”

“It was about what time we should wake up the next morning to go see the Hungarian Parliament,” Ben adds helpfully. “That is to say, it was mind-bogglingly stupid and very obviously not the actual reason we were fighting.”

“No. The fight started because of that. But that’s not what it was about," Bea agrees. 

“We’ve argued about some dumb things in the past, but that fight was about being tired and stupid and I think we were coming to the end of the honeymoon phase, and,” he pauses and looks at her a moment, “With all the stress and everything I think we started to doubt whether or not this could work.”

Bea doesn’t take her eyes off of him to respond. “I mean, we got set up. And yeah we’re grateful for that-”

“Sort of,” Ben interjects wryly. 

“But it did make me a little worried that… maybe this wasn’t the best idea.” She looks down at their hands on the back of the couch, and her voice is soft. “And we got together under such crazy circumstances that I think I was afraid that without high school and the drama and Team Love Gods, whatever it was that held us together would just… stop working.”

“And," Ben says, switching everyone's focus back to him. "I lived in perpetual fear, for about- no. No, actually, it wasn’t until the morning after the fight that I stopped worrying every day that you would wake up one morning and realize I was just some dickface, and-”

“Hey,” Bea says, squeezing his hand and meeting his eyes again. “You’re my dickface.”

Ben smiles at her. 

“Wow,” says Balthazar, and Bea and Ben start, like they’ve just remembered there are other people in the room. “I always just kind of assumed you both got over that shit during the Great Debacle of ‘14.”

“We got over a lot of it then, but it’s not a thing you get over entirely. It’s a thing you work on,” Bea says, turning to Balthazar, but not letting go of her boyfriend

“And there were more problems and issues once we totally got through that one. That's just life in a relationship,” Ben adds, shifting on the couch. 

“We’re good,” Bea says cockily, “but we aren’t perfect.”

“We are however,” Ben smiles like an idiot, and leans conspiratorially towards Beatrice. “Undeniably adorable.”

Claudio raises his hand. “I’ll deny it.”

“Seconded,” Meg yells. 

Bea just smirks and pulls Ben in for a kiss. Meg wolf whistles and Pedro coughs loudly. Bea flips them off. 

Hero coughs daintily, and says, “Uh, guys, do you want to tell the story?”

“Uggghhhh,” Bea says, pulling away from Ben and flopping back on her half of the couch. 

“I know,” Ben says, scooting towards her. “I thought that was much more fun than telling this story.”

“For you, maybe,” Pedro interrupts. “But the rest of us are here for your advice on relationships, not making out.”

“Well then,” Ben says, leaning back towards Bea. “As a happily settled man, here’s some relationship advice: make out.”

Bea puts her hand on his chest to stop him, but she rolls her eyes and laughs at the forlorn expression on his face. “He does actually have a point there,” she finally concedes.

“Why thank you, love,” Ben says softly. 

“I mean,” Bea quirks her eyebrows at him. “When his mouth is otherwise occupied, I don’t have to listen to him talk.”

“Oooohhhhh!” the others react in unison. 

“Burn!” Meg yells.

Ben dramatically brings a hand to his heart and looks directly at Beatrice. “Ouch, Bea. That hurt.”

“Want me to kiss it better?”

“Tempting as that offer is,” Ben says, smiling. “I believe these assholes want a story.”

“Alright,” she says, and they scoot apart a little bit until they can face each other properly on the couch again. “So it’d been a long day and we went back to the hostel. And at this hostel we had a private room. So it’s not as if this yelling match took place in front of a bunch of other people-”

“But let’s be real, the walls were thin, and the entire hostel probably heard every word we said,” Ben finishes for her. 

Bea winces. “Yeah.”

“And it got… heated,” Ben looks at the floor. 

Bea bites her lip and looks cautiously at Ben. “And we both said things we regret.”

“Because,” Ben says softly looking at Bea, but not touching her. “Sometimes when you fight, you get so mad you try to hurt the other person.”

“And I know it doesn’t always seem this way to you guys,” Bea looks briefly at her friends. “Because we argue constantly, and I call him Dickface and give him shit.”

Ben doesn’t look away from her as he finishes her thought. “But it’s really easy for us to hurt each other.”

There’s a pause. The room is utterly silent. Bea and Ben stare at each other, caught up in the memory. The rest of the group tries to look somewhere else, anywhere else, but always wind up looking back at the couple on the couch. They are sitting on almost opposite ends of the couch now, both curled up defensively. 

“And that’s what we did that night,” Bea says softly. “We tried to hurt each other.”

“I called her stubborn.”

“I called him immature.”

“I said I could see why the girls said she was arrogant.”

“I said I couldn’t believe he’d been naïve enough to believe I’d actually like him.”

“I told her I was leaving.”

“I told him to get out.”

“So I left.” 

There is another silence. Not as empty as the last one, but full of anticipation. 

“But I don’t understand,” Hero says, breaking the silence. “You knew it wasn’t true. You and Bea, you worked that out. Bea, I know you knew he loved you, and Ben, Bea may not be the most affectionate person in the world, but-”

“But I was 19 and terrified,” Ben says. “And I knew that Bea cared about me, but I don’t think I believed it yet. Or not at that moment anyway. So I stormed out.”

“And I was left by myself in a hostel in Budapest a thousand miles from home and all my friends, and I wasn't sure if I had a boyfriend anymore,” Bea says, her voice shaking. “So I called Ursula.”

“It was like 8 am,” Ursula says. “I was working on a project for film class, which is why I was up and on the computer. And I get a call from Bea and she’s in tears. She was talking about coming home, and ranting about how terrible boyfriends and relationships were, and saying how awful Ben was.”

“So, what did you do?” asks Pedro. “That’s… a lot to deal with.”

“She tried to calm me down, of course,” Bea says, matter-of-factly. “Talked me down. First she listened, and then she told me to breathe deep and stop panicking. I was on the verge of making a really dumb decision like coming home or leaving the hostel and Ursula stopped me.”

Ursula shrugs. “I asked her if she loved him.”

“Which of course I did. And I do. And even if I wasn’t in an emotional state to admit that at the time, even to Ursula, it was still true. And I needed the reminder.”

“And I asked her if she could remember why she was with him," Ursula says in her steady voice. 

“And I was just nodding and crying my eyes out. I was so terrified that he wasn’t coming back. Because he said he was leaving. And I didn’t know what that meant. Leaving the room or the hostel or the country or our relationship, and that was… terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.”

“So I told her to take an advil and go to bed,” Ursula says. “She needed rest.”

“People always say don’t go to bed mad at each other,” Ben interjects. “But that’s bullshit. It’s so easy to get into fights when you’re tired and grumpy and it’s so hard to get out of them. But it usually looks better in the morning.”

“So where were you in all of this?” Claudio asks.

“Ah, well, yes,” Ben says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “The thing is that… I don’t want to make it sound like this was a good idea. In fact, I wholeheartedly condemn my past self for this decision, and-”

“You went and got drunk,” Meg deduces.

Ben winces. “Yeah,” he admits. “Basically.” He shrugs. “Not my finest moment, really. I went and found a bar near the hostel, because it was nighttime, and there was nothing else to do and I was upset. And I just drank by myself for a couple of hours. Then at some point some girl came up to me. I think she was Spanish or Italian or something. But she spoke English, and she told me I looked sad. Which I did of course. I’m sure I was pretty pathetic. So I just sort of wound up pouring my heart out to her and sobbing in some random bar in Budapest. This poor girl, at some point she took me back to the hostel and gave me a bottle of water. I don’t remember much else, honestly. There may have been a speech about the meaning of love. And I don’t know if I gave it or if she gave it or what, but I do remember going back up to the room. And I’d forgotten what time it was, or I was too drunk to care, and I just went in and turned on the light and Bea was in there asleep. She didn’t wake up, of course. Because she was exhausted, and emotions are even more tiring than missing sleep. And she looked like she’d been crying, and I just felt like shit. Like, even worse shit than before. Because I was never. Never. gonna make Beatrice Duke cry. I’d promised myself that when we got together with all that drama and shit. That wasn’t going to happen. But I’d done it. And… I don’t even know. So I just brushed my teeth and went to bed.”

“And the next morning, I woke up, and he was there,” Bea says. “And I was so relieved.”

“I think when I woke up there may have been a second fight about who got to apologize first,” Ben said lightly. 

“Of course there was,” says Ursula with a smile. 

“And it went pretty well after that,” Ben says. “Like, we certainly fight occasionally. But that was the worst fight we’ve had so far.”

“Probably because we learned our lesson, and we talk to each other now.”

“And now I know that when Bea is tired she gets cranky and says things she doesn’t mean.”

“And if shit’s going down in our lives, we tell each other about it. So we don’t freak out over something dumb again. Or over the wrong thing. It’s easier just to do that then wait until somebody explodes.”

“And this way, if one of us does explode, we usually know why. And that stops me from, like, worrying that she’s never loved me. I know she does. Even when she’s cheating at MarioKart.”

“And the whole talking thing helps with a lot of other issues too," Bea says, rolling her eyes. 

“But you have to make talking a thing," Ben explains seriously. "Like, when we eat dinner together, there’s a no cell phones rule. Because talking.”

“And I know that cheating is a concern for a lot of people,” Bea says slowly. “But let’s face it. I’m not worried. There’s just no way. He tells me everything. He couldn’t keep my surprise birthday party a secret for two weeks, I don’t see him keeping another relationship secret.”

“Besides,” Ben says, leaning into her. “I’m far too focused on you to even think of anyone else.”

“You know.” Meg says, surveying them with her arms crossed. “You guys are actually kind of adorable.”

“And weirdly good at relationship stuff,” Claudio adds. 

“Practice makes perfect,” Ben says, wiggling his eyebrows. Beatrice sits up to hit him again, but he pulls her on top of him into a hug on his end of the couch. 

“Hold on a second,” Pedro says, confused. “What I’m getting here is that Beatrice and Benedick. Ms. “I don’t need a boyfriend” and Mr. “relationships are fucking terrible” who we had to trick into dating,” his voice rises a pitch. “Are now not only dating and practically engaged, but are actually good enough at being in the relationship that they get to give us advice.”

“Yup,” says Ben, holding out his hand. 

“Sounds about right,” Bea says, hi-fiving her boyfriend. 

“We’re just that good,” Ben says, and he leans down and kisses Beatrice. 

“Eeeewww!” Meg yells overdramatically.

“Gross!” Pedro says. 

“Well, I think it’s sweet,” Hero says, and everyone groans.


End file.
